Educators

Why the Air Force Academy?(01:59)

Instructors and cadets share what a person can expect from attending the Air Force Academy. In exchange for full four-year scholarships, cadets participate in a rigorous program of study, which prepares them to become second lieutenants in the Air Force.

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Dr. Steven Samuels: I think students who are considering attending the Air Force Academy, I think need to think carefully about it. This is a place that has a lot to offer, but it's also not for everybody. There are a lot of challenges here that a lot of people honestly aren't up for.

Cadet Alicia Wallace: Being here, I've done more than I ever thought I could ever do with my entire life. I mean you don't realize what your limits are until you've pushed all of them and realized that you have incredible potential.

Dr. Steven Samuels: People who choose to come, the men and women I teach, for example, I mean they're on every day.

Capt. Jessica Kashka: Here at the Academy, we're training leaders, but we're also training folks to be in our Military. They're getting day-to-day live experience, on-the-job experience, some of them are jumping out of planes, flying planes, running satellites. It's a grand experience.

Dr. Steven Samuels: The benefits of a military and an academic institution or, well, I guess they're exactly what you would think. You have an academic institution, so my students are doing the same things here that they were doing at Stanford. You know they're taking the same kinds of classes. They're just as rigorous. I mean, I can testify to that, having been there. When I graduated from college, you know, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, and I did some of this and some of that. They know what they're doing when they're graduating. And knowing what you're doing the day after you graduate really focuses you as an undergraduate. The Military and the academics are separate, but they're also the same thing. They're two different ways of getting to the same point.

Cadet Alicia Wallace: I know someday I'm going to have an impact on lots of people, and I love that. I'm a totally different person. I'm still me, but I'm a better me.